


these rags are mine

by statueofsirens



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/F, Fantastic Racism, Pre-Relationship, Qunari Culture and Customs, Tal-Vashoth Culture and Customs, Vashoth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23751910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statueofsirens/pseuds/statueofsirens
Summary: She likes her clothes. She likes her skin.She's not going to stop just because the humans would prefer it.
Relationships: Female Adaar/Josephine Montilyet
Comments: 14
Kudos: 97





	these rags are mine

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse to write lady flirting but also a chance to go YOU MAD BRO when the human members of the inquisition get uncomfortable with Adaar being comfortable in her skin.

Haven reeks of boiled leather and tanners.

No matter that the forge is outside the walls, or that the scouts drag their skins and leathers down to the lake to wash. The smell wafts downwind, straight into the compound, and sinks into the bones of the buildings. Aasifa can taste the astringents, bitter and acidic, on her tongue each morning she wakes. It cuts through crisp mountain air, the clean sharpness of ice and snow, and clogs her lungs and nose. 

It’s somehow like home and nothing like it at all, and she avoids the armorers as best she can. 

Her clothing is old, but solid. Cobbled together, one might say. A belt she won in a fight and loops low on her hips. A skirt that has frayed edges and holes near the hem. Boots with leather guards to protect her knees that are old and faded, but more comfortable than bare soles. The leather that she fastens around her shoulder and down her guard arm is strong, but worn and supple enough to move with her body instead of against it. 

Her midriff is bare. It is the way her mother has always worn her clothing, the way Aasifa will wear hers, because it is comfortable and her skin is pride. Strong, tough, durable. The Vashoth have only the scraps of a culture they love but have left behind, and they cobble it together as best they can. 

Just like her armor. 

Her clothing is hers. It’s reliable, it still smells like the harsh lye soap used by the Valo-Kas, like lingering magic and soot, and she knows where each piece came from. 

A soldier’s gaze falls to her bare stomach and their eyebrows pinch. Aasifa bares her teeth in a grin until he looks away. 

***

“Harritt makes some decent arms and armor,” the former templar, Cullen, says to her one day. 

Aasifa stretches her neck, making it pop, and continues to sew. 

“The men have seen druffalo out in the fields. Their hides are strong and warm, easy to work with. You could have yourself something made. Something... more fitting, perhaps.” 

“My clothes fit just fine,” she says, pulling a stitch closed. “Or are you suggesting I’ve outgrown them, Commander?” 

Even as humans go, the templar is pale, and he goes delightfully red whenever she pokes at him. It clashes with the yellow of his hair, and she has to purse her lips to hold in the grin that wants to break free. 

“Not at all,” he says, and there’s a boyish fluster. It makes her snicker, and the look she gets in response is scathing. “I only mean to say there is no need to wear scraps when you can have something _decent_ made.” 

“Because I’m indecent,” she says, and its flippant, but it isn’t. 

Qunari skin is pride. It’s strong. 

She likes her clothes. She likes her skin. 

***

“Feel like I should call you Navel instead of Legs, sometimes.” Varric rumbles, and his voice is as much grit as it is ash. Make it deeper, make him many feet taller, and he would remind her of a more charming version of her father. 

Her father wasn’t good with words, but he had a way about him. Sometimes, when the stink of tanning leather clogs her nose, she buries her face in her pillow and remembers being a child. The rumble of a deep voice lulling her to sleep as he told stories of fights long past across the fire. 

“Not much of a seaman,” she admits, stretching until her shoulder pops. 

“Navel as in that thing on your belly, not the Navy.” Varric says, and it’s with a chuckle. Still, his words make her tilt her head, and she hooks her hands behind her neck as she looks down at him. 

“Been admiring me, dwarf?” 

“You’re a woman shaped mountain and I am but a man,” he says, but it’s so dry his words may as well have been sand. “Just a matter of perspective, kid.” 

“I like my navel,” she says, reaching to brush her fingers along thick skin and ridged abdominals. “I like my legs, too.” 

“So do a lot of people. That nervous nelly over at the tavern couldn’t keep her eyes off you the other night.” 

And where that may have made her glow with pride, instead all it does is make her frown. Because the bartender had not looked on her with appreciation, or admiration, or even lust. It had just been that same pinched look that humans always seemed to have when they looked at her these days. 

“I can’t help that I’m a beauty,” she quips, and turns away. 

***

“I’ve commissioned you a new armor,” the Seeker tells her. 

“How kind,” Aasifa says. It comes out snotty and she’s not inclined to apologize. 

“I expect you to outfit yourself properly when it’s ready.” 

Turning, she regards the stern woman curiously, and finds the same thin-lipped expression she’d expected. Pity, for the human woman was such a strong and raw beauty, and all she did with that lovely face was make herself look like a cross schoolmarm. 

“My armor is satisfactory. I don’t need to change it.” 

The Seeker makes a sound that somehow encompasses disgust and frustration in equal measure. “You’re begging for a mortal wound. If you are to be in the field, you need to be protected.” 

“I’ve been in the field for years,” she says, and her ease slips, her patience falters. “Qunari skin is strong. I don’t need to cover it.” 

“You do, and you will.” The Seeker says with such finality that Aasifa feels like a scolded child. Though she stands so high, she suddenly feels so small. 

“I don’t and will not,” she says, and she storms away before another word can be said. 

***

If she is to be treated as a child, she may as well act like one. The small courtyard beside the Chantry is shrouded in snow-capped shrubs, and she hides there, stewing and angry, until someone comes to find her 

“Mistress Adaar?” 

The voice is lilting, accented, and makes her chest tighten until she can barely breathe.

Lady Montilyet rarely leaves her small dark office, and the cold light of the mountains shines off her hair until it gleams like obsidian. 

“Josephine,” she greets, but she wishes for anyone else. Sister Leliana, the Seeker, the templar, the dwarf. If someone is to scold her, let it be another. 

“I apologize for the intrusion, but I am told that there was a disagreement between yourself and Seeker Cassandra.” The words are spoken carefully, sympathetically, and Aasifa dearly wishes it is genuine and not simple diplomacy. 

“I tire of others trying to dictate my clothing,” she admits. 

The diplomat’s eyebrows pinch, and she takes a few steps closer. “What do you mean?” 

“My armor,” Aasifa says, looking down at herself. Practical pieces of leather in key areas to protect her, her breasts carefully bound but leaving mobility and ease of breath, her bare belly and the slitted skirt made for movement and running. “It is mine. It is how my people wear our clothing.” 

“I admit, I know little of Qunari fashion.” Josephine said, coming to lean against the stone wall at her side. “But do you not worry? You stomach is bare. A stray spell, a sword, they could take your life.” 

“Qunari skin is strong,” Aasifa says. In her mind, she says _Qunari skin is pride._ “I have no shame in my skin.” The human assesses her for a long moment, eyes searching, and for a moment she wonders if the Antivan isn’t secretly some manner of mind reader. 

“Strong enough to stop a blade?” The woman asked, and it is not condescending. Amused perhaps. A quirk to her generous lips, a gleam in her dark eyes, and Aasifa feels it shake down her spin to flutter in her belly. 

Her palms sweat. That’s not good. 

“Maybe not stop it, but to deflect it.” She says. She brushes her hand across her abdomen, the tough skin smooth to the touch, and her eyebrows pinch. Her mother had scars, but none from mortal wounds. Dashes of white across a grey canvas, slightly raised to the touch, and Aasifa had spent many a night as a child cuddled into her lap, tracing the marks with small fingers. 

“You’re joking,” the human woman says, her long nose crinkling sweetly, and something reckless and wild inspires her. 

“Truly,” Aasifa says, and before she can stop herself, she grasps the woman’s wrist and presses her palm to her belly. Her heart is thundering, and somewhere a stray thought begs her to be more sensible. “See? Strong.” 

“Oh,” Josephine gasps, her fingertips warm and trying to curl away from skin, before twitching and pressing close. It is madness, surely, that has driven her to do such a thing, but the diplomat’s mouth is caught in a small ‘o’ and her expression is not one of repulsion or discomfort, but fascination. 

Her cheeks are darker than they were a minute ago. Rich and sweet like summer plums.

“Remarkable,” Josephine says. Its genuine, warm, delighted, and startles a grin out of her. “How little we really know of each other.”

“Humans and qunari, or you and I?” She asks, before she can help it. 

Faltering, the human pulls her hand away, and Aasifa is bereft. How foolish she is, how senseless. 

But when Josephine tilts her chin up, her eyes glimmer like dark jewels, and Aasifa's breath whooshes out from her lungs. 

“Both, I should think.” She says, and there is a flustered coyness that makes Aasifa’s scalp prickle with nerves and her insides burn with delight. 

“I shall speak with my associates about being more respectful of cultural boundaries.” Josephine says, and there’s an edge there, a promise, sharp as any blade. “Unfortunately, I must return to my work. I hope to speak with you soon, Mistress Adaar. This has been a most... eye-opening, discussion.” 

“Of course,” she agrees, but her tongue feels dry and flat, and far too large for the cavity of her mouth. 

“Until later,” Josephine says, nodding her head as she departs. It is only as she is about to brush past the threshold of the small alcove that she turns back, her hair and skin radiant in the cold light, and smiles. 

It hits Aasifa like a blow to the sternum, but she smiles the rest of the evening. 

Her smile lasts well through the coming days when no one tries to offer her boiled hides and creaking leathers. 


End file.
